Browsing by Author "Ojala, Tiia"

Goals The aim of this study was to examine how prosodic features affect the perception of prominence with Finnish participants. In more detail, the focus of the study was on the strength and hierarchy of four different acoustic features, length, intensity, fundamental frequency and its dynamic movement. These are examined for the first time in the same experiment. Addition to the acoustic features, the order of the stimuli is also considered to have an effect on perceived prominence. Generally, the phenomena of speech perception have been explained with both universal theories and language specific features, which could affect the perception differently for speakers from different language backgrounds. Method This experiment had two parts. First part of the test included 200 stimuli which all consisted of three sounds. The stimuli were synthetic, word-like stimuli, approximately 300 milliseconds long and varied randomly with regard to the acoustic features of length, intensity, fundamental frequency and its dynamicity. The second part of the test included 200 stimuli with three sound sequences, that were manipulated from the 300 ms long sound into syllable-like, approximately 100 millisecond long sounds. Altogether 24 informants took part in the experiment (14 for the first part, 15 for the second) and they judged which one of the three sound stood out from the others. The answers were analysed with a linear mixed-effect model. Results and conclusions Based on this experiment, fundamental frequency and length of the stimuli were the most important features of perceived prominence for Finnish speakers. Dynamicity of the pitch and intensity of the stimuli were not statistically significant features. It's possible that the influence of pitch height is so great that it overrides the other features possible impacts on perceived prominence